A month and a half has passed since the beginning of the Fall semester and students are not aware of the Shuttle Services being offered by WTAMU.
“There is still quite a few [students] that don´t know they can park in First United Bank Center,” Vicky Halsey, bus driver, said. “We still have kids parking in the community and neighborhood.”
This service has been available for several years now, but on Feb. 2010, a new route was created to take students from the FUBC to the rest of campus.
“We have two shuttle buses,” Meri Lin O´dell, director of police administration, said. “They both begin service at 7:30 a.m. from the FUBC.”
Samantha Gibson, senior speech communication major, takes the shuttle bus every day and says that the service has been helpful this semester and that construction has limited the parking availability on campus.
“I have class Monday through Thursday and the first couple of weeks I didn´t find a [parking] spot.” Gibson said. “It helps the madness of finding space in the FAC.”
Even though some students are not aware of the shuttle bus service, an increase in number of persons riding the buses is already being seen.
“I used to ride with one or two people,” Gibson said. “Now 50 or 60 percent of seats are taken.”
Gibson says that the two buses that are available now are comfortable, but that maybe in the future it would be a good idea to add a new bus.
“Right now [the service] is steadily growing, if it continues, I see the need for another bus so you don´t have to wait causing you to be late,” Gibson said.
Halsey believes it would be beneficial to have another drop off on campus to give more options to students.
“It would be nice if we could have a drop off on the north side in the Engineering and Nursing [building]. Right now [the service] is only central campus,” Halsey said.
The Police Administration does not know if this will be an option for the future.
“I really have no opinion about additional buses or different buses because that is not within my area of control,” O´dell said. “We simply use the equipment as provided by the University.”
The shuttle buses are available in two different routes. The smaller shuttle, “Buffalo Express”, drives to the south entrance of the Activity Center, continues to the east side of the Pedestrian Mall, and returns to the FUBC to start the route again. This bus runs from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
The second shuttle drives to the west side of the Pedestrian Mall and returns to the FUBC to begin the route again. The bus runs from 7:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m.
